Northwest Minnesota brute: Roseau hunter's bull elk poised to top state nontypical hunting record

Feb. 17—ROSEAU, Minn. — Gary Przekwas knew the bull elk, with its massive rack and points going every which direction, was something special, but he didn't realize just how special until they put a measuring tape to the antlers.

Przekwas, of Roseau, shot a 10x11 bull elk Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, in the Caribou Township area of northeast Kittson County — Minnesota elk hunting Zone 30 — that is a lock to become the largest nontypical bull elk ever taken by hunting in Minnesota, based on the Boone and Crockett Club's system for measuring trophy big game animals.

Randy Dufault of East Grand Forks, a certified measurer for Boone and Crockett, scored the rack in early February.

"I had (the rack) sitting in my entryway up until I brought it to (the taxidermist), and I tell you what — every time I'd walk by it, I'd have to stop and stare at it for a while," said Przekwas, superintendent of public works and utility billing administration for the city of Roseau.

Dufault came up with a gross score of 434⅞ inches and a net score of 413 3/8 inches nontypical — the category for asymmetrical antlers — but he said the "funky" rack was difficult to measure. A lot of judgment calls had to be made.

"It's got a lot of sticker points and junk, and it's real palmated" — or shaped like an open hand — Przekwas said. "He had his work cut out for him. I don't know how long it normally takes to score a rack, but it took quite a while."

It was difficult to determine where the bottom of the eye guards are as they go straight up instead of out, Dufault said, and which points were typical and which ones were nontypical because of the way the rack is twisted.

"There were so many calls on that thing," he said. "I think I basically did it right."

But, he added, the score could "be completely different with some of my calls going a different way" if another certified scorer measures the rack.

"Every measurer will or can have a different idea as to how it's scored," Dufault said.

Because Przekwas' bull is poised to be the largest nontypical bull taken by hunting in Minnesota, it will also have to be scored by a Boone and Crockett judges' panel, Dufault says, which is standard procedure for record-setting big game.

That will determine the rack's final score.

"It could change," Dufault said.

However the final official score ultimately shakes out, Przekwas' elk should easily outscore the existing No. 2 nontypical in Minnesota, which Dufault said measured 362⅞ inches.

"It's quite a bit smaller," he said.

The No. 1 Minnesota nontypical elk,

which was found dead in December 2010 in the same part of Kittson County, had a 6x7 rack and scored 458 4/8 after the 60-day drying period, according to Herald archives.

That bull, which had stumbled while trying to jump a fence and landed on its back with its antlers mired in deep mud, was freed with the help of area residents but died from the ordeal a few days later.

"That's way bigger — but it wasn't hunter-killed," said Dufault, who also scored that bull.

In a phone interview, Przekwas said he knew the bull he shot in September was big, but he wasn't thinking about a record.

"That didn't cross my mind," he said. "When I called him out of the woods, he literally had so many branches hanging on his rack, I could just see tines and branches. It was hard to tell exactly. I just knew it was the bull I was after, but I could hardly see the rack, it was so covered with branches when he came through."

Przekwas, who has shot 10 elk in 10 trips to Colorado, says it will be tough to top the thrill of shooting a trophy bull within walking distance of the family cabin in Kittson County.

Przekwas and his sister, Shar Peterson of Roseau, both drew once-in-a-lifetime tags

for the northeast Kittson County hunting unit in 2023, and both shot trophy bulls.

Peterson drew a landowner tag, which has better odds, but Przekwas was one of 3,724 people who applied for Minnesota's 17 elk licenses in 2023, based on statistics from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Only five were available last year in Zone 30.

Peterson shot a 7x7 bull two days before her brother that had a "very unofficial" green score of 367 5/8 inches, she told the Herald in September.

In addition to being the biggest bull elk he'd ever shot, Przekwas says it also was the easiest, given the flat terrain of northwest Minnesota. Mountain hunting, by comparison, is physically demanding, he says.

"I didn't even break a sweat, walking on flatland here and I didn't get tired at all, but a day up in the mountains, that's a whole different story," Przekwas said.

The experience from those mountain hunts, Przekwas says, definitely helped him keep the excitement level in check in shooting the Kittson County bull.

"It's a totally different thing," he said. "You don't see bulls like this, for sure. But I know that hunting all those different elk that I have over the years helped me out.

"Believe me, I got excited."

The Roseau siblings both will have their elk on display at the Minnesota Deer & Turkey Classic, set for March 8-10 at Canterbury Park in Shakopee — show organizers are paying their travel expenses — and that's when Przekwas' pending No. 2 nontypical bull will be panel scored.

"I will be there to help," Dufault said.

Eventually, Przekwas says he plans to pay the $40 fee to enter the bull in the Boone and Crockett all-time records book, which requires a minimum score of 385 points in the nontypical elk category.

"It's exciting," Przekwas said. "I figured I'd better put it in the record book so my grandkids and family can see that when I'm gone."